So i was able to create a symbolic link with “Link Shell Extention” between some of my characters in the save/main folder and save/user folder to use these characters in mods with ease.
I tried the same with the files of the transfer stash, but failed:
First of all, if you just try and hardlink the transfer stash files from /save to /save/modname, the stash somehow doesn’t get loaded and thus, is empty.
While i have no idea why this “loading issue” occurs i found out some things about the save mechanism:
Instead of saving to the old transfer.gst file, the original bile gets renamed to transfer.gst.bak and a new one (with the updated items in the transfer stash) is created, ignoring the hardlink.
Example:
You hardlink the files transfer.gst and transfer.gst.bak to your mod folder:
After one session the original transfer.gst.bak file will be deleted, replaced by the transfer.gst which got renamed to *.bak. A new trasfer.bak file is created, which, due to the “loading issue”, is empty. Furthermore, all of this has no effect on the main campaign files.
When it comes to the formula save files, it partially works: while i can see and use the recepies from the main campaign, i can conclude from my experience with the transfer files, that changes to the formulas in the mod (for example learning a new recipe) will not affect the main campaign files; thus eliminating the reason to use hardlinks in the first place.
Secondly, it is not possible to just use a symbolically linked folder as done with the character save files, since the file structure for the transfer and formula save files is different: The destination folder ( /save/modname ) is already contained by the link folder ( /save ).
If anyone knows a way to link the transfer stash and formula files between the main campaign and the mod, please let me know.